“You forgot to say ‘Uno’!” Lang Giang cheerfully exclaims before covering her mouth in laughter. It’s the twelfth time she’s caught me this trip and blocked me from winning. By this point in our trek, day four of six, Giang feels more like a friend than my tour guide through Sapa.

Once the sun slips beneath the shimmering waves slathering the sky with soft pinks, reds and oranges, the green lamps of the squid boats strung across the horizon blink on and resemble a series of ellipses as if the ocean is trying to articulate the unsayable.

As the planet-wide dumpster fire that was 2018 comes to a close, we’d like to take a moment to look back at the year in Hẻm Gems through our first-ever Golden Plastic Stool Awards. These will honor some of our favorite local eateries from the past 12 months across four categories: Best Vietnamese Food, Best Non-Vietnamese Food, Best Ambiance and Best Cafe/Bar. We’ll also take a moment to honor our favorite Hẻm Gems that were shuttered this year.

Firmly established as the international school of choice in Ho Chi Minh City, the British International School is a selective, independent and co-educational day school that provides a diverse international education measured by British standards.

FMP’s Saigon International Mother & Baby Association (SIMBA) hopes you and your family had a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year—and is delighted to announce that our SIMBA gatherings will be resumed this month!

Add demand for elephant tail hair jewelry, beside habitat loss and ivory poaching, to the list of what will likely lead to the extinction of this incredible creature.

In Dak Lak, the mountainous highland province where Vietnam's remaining wild elephants roam, an ugly trend is emerging: collecting tail hairs to embed in rings or make bracelets out of. While collecting and selling naturally shed elephant hairs is a legal activity with historic roots in numerous cultures, these hairs are more likely to be illegally harvested from living elephants or taken from poached corpses.

Elephants obviously have hair for a reason, and removing it puts stress on them. "The tail is very much a part of body hygiene, so by plucking the hairs out ... or cutting the entire lower tail off, you're putting a handicap on your elephant," said Dionne Slagter, Animal Welfare Manager at Animals Asia.

Finding an elephant hair in Vietnam is considered good luck while people in Africa, India and elsewhere in Asia believe wearing it has the power to protect a wearer from illness. Selling it or removing it directly from the pachyderms, however, is a new development. Vietnamese living amongst the animals "loved and considered elephants part of their family so they wouldn't do anything to hurt them," said Linh Nga Nie Kdam, a researcher on Ede culture.

Vietnam is home to only 100 or so wild elephants, down from 2,000 in 1990. Experts, therefore, believe that much of the hair sold originates elsewhere in Asia or as far as Africa. There have been several high-profile busts of elephant hair jewelry outside of Vietnam, including one in Senegal where goods worth US$65,000 were seized.